


A French Trio Of Bad Decisions

by Resterampe (BreitzbachBea)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Like Father Like Son (Online Novel), Original Work
Genre: Bickering, Complicated Relationships, Désirée is a hoot and a half as always, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, Love/Hate, M/M, Major Original Character(s), One-Sided Crush, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19448329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreitzbachBea/pseuds/Resterampe
Summary: There was heartbreak in Arielle's eyes and love in François' kisses at night. There was cognac in Hugo's glass and the irritating realisation that none of these things ever happened between him and Leo.There was fury in Arielle's eyes and coldness in François' voice in the morning. Hugo wanted to vomit into his coffee, but was at least soothed that if what the French had was love, he sure as fuck wasn't missing it with Leo.





	1. A small pub

„You shouldn’t go to their hotel room later,“ Arielle said, one hand underneath her chin and the other around her wineglass. “You’re only going to make yourself sad and angry in the morning again, when you’re sneaking to your own in the end.”

She already opened her mouth again to continue, but Hugo was faster. “I’m not sneaking back like someone’s one night stand. If they want me, they’ll also have see my face the morning after.”

Arielle’s lips twitched and after a few seconds, Hugo believed that she wanted to laugh. But there came no laugh.

Instead, Arielle turned around and looked over her shoulder to the table with the English. They were also tipsy, which apparently meant that Tahir had become clingy. That was what he was doing anyways - he clung to Robert as he laughed and grinned while Robert pulled him even closer.

He must have not seen Arielle’s look over to them and she turned back to Hugo. “Sometimes you have to let things go if you don’t want to change,” she told him.

Hugo didn’t know what to reply and instead turned his own glass. He felt a rumble in his gut that tried to fight against gravity and make it up to his head through his veins.

Yet, as she sat there and smiled, it stirred something in him even deeper than his anger.

Resignation?

Who knew.

“Why are you making yourself sad, mon cœur?” François asked Arielle as he sat down next to her. He had left Arthur behind at the table to which Arielle had looked before.

“ _I’m_ not making myself sad,” Arielle replied, a small but cynical and almost biting smile on her lips underneath the tired eyes.

“You’re the one who’s looking at it despite knowing what you’ll see,” he answered.

Arielle opened her mouth, lips still pulled into the smile. Then she closed it again. The smile dropped and her eyebrows slightly arched as she looked for words. Seemed to look for the willpower to get an answer out.

She stayed quiet in the end and twirled her wineglass once before she took a sip from it.

François looked over to Hugo. “You don’t seem very happy here, either.”

“Don’t give him dumb ideas, François,” Arielle said. “I was trying to talk him out of it.”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t about to,” he answered. “That would only make you more miserable. You should get some beauty sleep instead,” he told Hugo.

 _What, so that I don’t end up like you old sods?_ , he thought but couldn’t get himself to say it. Somehow, for some reason, he wasn’t angry enough. Maybe he was tired.

“Yes, don’t waste your life and your nights on things that make you sit sad over a drink 2 am,” Arielle said. “There’s still tomorrow which you could spent looking for someone you can have fun with and then not see for months. Or never again; you should come to Paris, I know some people who’d die to meet someone like you.” She grinned.

“Oh yes, I’d know some places for you to go,” François added. “You should get out of Liechtenstein more. A lovely little place on earth, but no idyllic countryside utopia can get that sickness out of your body.” He leant in to Hugo. “And neither can Leo, because you two are the ones pumping it into each other.”

“I don’t want to talk with you about pumping,” was all Hugo replied. François pressed his lips together and frowned slightly, but Arielle chuckled.

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to be poetic around this hour,” she said. “And with that alcohol level.”

“You’re just too drunk to appreciate it.”

“We’re not drunk enough. Come, go back to Arthur, you’re both not ugly drunk tonight, he’ll appreciate for once.”

“He won’t, but he’ll still be nicer to me than you are,” he said. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

Hugo wondered if this was what he wanted. To go back to someone, in someone’s arms. Someone who might laugh at you, but insulted you with so much cheeriness and love behind each word. Someone who kissed you drunk and hugged you drunk, who loved you drunk because they also loved you sober.

He didn’t know. He watched François go back, watched him and Arthur talk, Arthur laugh about something he said. Watched him grab François by his long blonde hair to pull him into a kiss.

Did he want this with Leo? He didn’t know. He had heard that what these two had was much more complicated than what he and Leo had. Older, too.

Everyone here had a backstory with each other and it irked him that there had been more emotions and history in Arielle’s look to Tahir than there had been in any discussions between him and them after sex.

He knew it was shallow. For Leo, at least. He didn’t know if he wanted to have something deep, though. He didn’t need Arielle’s heartbreak that even her new girlfriend didn’t seem to be able to wipe away. He didn’t need a long and complicated history like François and Arthur.

He needed a new drink, he thought, as he peered to the empty bottom of his glass. Or maybe he needed his own bed.

Or maybe he just needed a good fuck, he thought three drinks later as he walked with a spring in his step through the hotel hallways.


	2. A crammed breakfast hall

Hugo wanted to vomit into his coffee. He hadn’t even dared yet to touch anything solid. The four hours of sleep he had gotten probably hadn’t helped. 

The buzz in his head was intensified by the voices around him. What yesterday had been a small, intimate pub was now a small, intimate breakfast hall. Nobody wanted intimacy during a hungover breakfast. There were only three tables in the room and Nathan had decided to take the one crammed into a corner. At least Hugo had gotten one of the two chairs and didn’t have to squeeze himself onto the bench like Leo, who sat between Lilli and Lule. 

Leo didn’t seem to mind. They didn’t look like they’d been up drinking until 1 am and had been knocked awake at 3 am. 

Meanwhile he was sure that every part of last night’s miserable odyssey was written into the creases of his face. 

That would at least explain the faces that greeted him when he looked over his shoulder to the French’s table. They shared theirs with the Englishmen, who seemed to take advantage of length the table offered them. At least Arthur sat a chair-width away from François, who couldn’t bridge the distance even when he leant in to him. So there he sat, with his chin propped up onto his arms and a bored expression on his face, as he caught Hugo’s eye. 

A grin began to spread on his face and he sat up straight before he waved at Hugo. Arielle turned around as well and gave him a grin. 

Désirée didn’t notice a thing as her head rested on her arms which she had crossed on the table. 

Hugo pushed his chair back to get up. He had lifted himself off when Nathan asked: “Where are you going?” 

“I just wanted to go over to … them,” Hugo said without looking at him. 

“Why?”

“Boy, you haven’t eaten anything yet,” Robin said who sat beside him. 

“I’m not hungry,” Hugo replied and pushed himself away from his chair. He wanted to leave before any more comments could be made. 

“Hugo, chéri, come, sit down,” François said and gestured to an empty chair at the head of the table. “You look terrible, I guess you didn’t get much sleep last night. Not as much as glasses of cognac, I’d presume.” 

“I think it might just be the misery that has overcome him as he woke up in a bed other than his own,” Arielle said while she stared Hugo into the eyes as he sat down. 

It took him a moment after he sat down. He blinked a few times while his stomach tried to contain its content. 

“I didn’t wake up in someone else’s bed,” he said and both Arielle’s and François’ eyebrows shot up. “Oh, Hugo, mon cher, I’m proud of you,” Arielle said before she exchanged a look with François. When she turned back to Hugo, her smile had turned into a grin. “And we had thought that all of our warnings last night had been futile again.” 

“Yes, I thought I’d get some entertainment out of someone else’s misery instead of bathing in my own,” François said and carried on with a smile. “But honestly, I’m happier to hear that.” 

Arthur snorted and it was a distraction that Hugo gladly took. 

François shot him a look. “What? You’re ruining what could have been a perfectly fine morning by being _English._ ” 

“You’re ruining what has been a perfectly fine morning so far by being _French_ ,” Arthur retorted in French. “It’s not my fault you can’t behave yourself in front of other people.” 

“You couldn’t behave yourself either last night, mon amour.” 

Arthur grid his teeth and shot him a glare. “Drunk mishaps. We’re at breakfast, not over a drink.” 

“You make me want to drink so early in the morning, chèri.” 

“Don’t use me as an excuse for your alcohol problem.” 

“You were so much cuter when you were tending to your alcohol problem last night, you were even cuter when you woke up hungover in my arms.” 

The glare could now have cut glass without a problem. “Keep the private things of your life to yourself, frog, at least as long as they include _me_.” 

François stared at him for a while, the corners of his mouth slightly low but with his eyes cold. Arthur returned the stare for a while and his face turned redder with every second. 

He gave in and concerned himself with his teacup again, the giant brows knit in anger. 

No, he didn’t envy this, Hugo thought. Maybe his relationship with Leo wasn’t easy either, but it wasn’t as complicated as this. Sometimes he had left their place in a huff and Leo had given him a sad look for it, but never had their eyes been this cold or Hugo’s face red in anger. 

“At least someone here is doing the right thing with his poor heart,” François said after he had turned back to Hugo. He smiled at him, before he cocked his head and it turned into a smirk. “Say, mon cher, any plans yet on how to keep you safe from repeating your mistakes? The offer to come to Paris still stands. There’ll be plenty of distraction for you.” 

“Hey,” Hugo said but couldn’t get another word out for a moment. His hangover still weighed on him. “It’s not like I’m glued to them. I can meet plenty of people with Leo as well, they don’t care about that. I can do what I want.” 

Sudden silence from the two when the grins dropped off their faces and their eyebrows shot up. 

Arielle squinted at him and Hugo was startled. 

“If you can do what you want, then why do you keep coming back to them?” she asked. “Because I know that you did something last night and that wasn’t going straight to your room.” 

Hugo had no answer and really wished he had taken his coffee cup along with him, if only to hide behind it. 

As he tried to avoid Arielle’s stare for a second, he noticed that Robert was looking down the table with a questioning and annoyed look. 

Hugo turned back to Arielle, but still heard him say: “What the hell kind of witch trial is going on there?” to the other two Englishmen. 

“You wouldn’t want to know,” Arthur answered him. 

“Mon cher, you have no sense for the adventures in life,” François told Arthur. 

“You have a very perverted sense of what these adventures are,” Arthur replied. 

Arielle gave Robert a stare that was more miffed and yet colder than any other he had seen thrown around this morning. 

Robert’s eyes narrowed even more and his eyebrows came further down. 

Hugo directed her attention back to him by speaking up: “But I didn’t sleep with them.” 

François mustered his face for a moment. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re still lying or not. You’re just sounding and looking miserable either way.”

Hugo furrowed his brows. “I’m not lying. I told you …” He needed a moment to recollect what he _did_ tell them. “I told you that I woke up in my own bed and that I didn’t sleep with them. Neither of that are lies.” 

“But you don’t want us to be happy for you for doing as we told you and stop getting your poor heart broken,” François said. Hugo’s shoulders dropped and he rolled his eyes. “Nor did you come here to spill your heart out over last night’s mistakes.” _The only mistake was talking to you,_ Hugo thought. “If you didn’t want to tell us anything, why did you come here in the first place? We’re already having one hungover corpse here.” He pointed to Désirée. 

“Honestly, I don’t know either anymore,” Hugo said. 

François cocked his head. He looked over to the Swiss’ table and back to Hugo. “Can’t stand sitting at the same table as them?” There was a smirk on his face. 

Hugo’s brows now knit in anger and he grid his teeth for a moment. “ _I_ am not the who draws their horns in here. I didn’t do it last night and I’m sure as fuck not starting any time soon.” 

Arielle sighed. “Yes, that’s the whole problem, how lovely to hear that our labour of love last night has been a waste of time. Quit lying now, though, Hugo. If you didn’t draw your horns in last night means that you went there and did them.” She looked at him from the corners of her eyes without the trace of a smile on her face. Cold sweat began to run down his back while he grid his teeth again.

He leant in to her and said: “I went there and they didn’t want me. Their loss, not mine.” 

Arielle’s face did not change a shade for several seconds. “So you went there only to be rejected,” she finally said and while her eyes still were tired, the corners of her mouth twitched. 

It began to dawn on Hugo what he had just said. 

“My apologies for not believing you,” François said. The smirk on his face had grown. “I hadn’t thought that you could sink any lower.” 

“When did you go there?” Arielle joined him. The twitch of her lips had grown into a smile as well. It reached her eyes now, too and their coldness had been replaced by an equally cold sparkle. “And how much did you drink before?” 

“Probably for the better that they rejected you, it would have been even more humiliating to be too drunk for sex, “ François said. 

Hugo’s hands began to run through his hair before he put his face onto the table top with his hands folded on top of his head. He heard Arielle chuckle. 

“I wasn’t that badly drunk,” he muttered, even though his entire appearance disagreed with this statement. 

“I am pretty sure I left before you and you were still drinking then,” Arielle said. “François, do you remember when you left and if Hugo was still there?” 

“I can’t actually tell you, I don’t quite remember anything before I left. Arthur that clung to me and – ouch!” Hugo lifted his head and saw how François and Arthur glared at each other. 

“What did I tell you about keeping me out of this?” Arthur said. 

“I didn’t hear myself listen to you,” François replied. 

“Of course, what should be between your ears to catch it.” 

François continued to glare, but Arthur was unfazed. 

“Ok, maybe I stayed up late,” Hugo told Arielle. At this point it was probably better to get over with it before this nightmare kept fueling itself. “And maybe I was a little drunk. Maybe it was a dumb idea to knock at their door at 3 am.” 

“Your entire affair has become a dumb idea, mon cher,” Arielle said. “You’re playing a game that you can’t win.” 

Hugo’s nose scrunched up, but before he could retort anything, he heard a moan next to him. 

Désirée had lifted her head and held one side of it. Her glasses hung lopsided. 

“You knocked at their door at 3 am to _fuck_?” she asked. 

“… are you alright?” Hugo asked instead. 

“I am very alright for a zombie, thank you.” She paused. Her eyes wandered upwards. “Is it a zombie if a necromancer revived it or another kind of sentient corpse?” she asked the rest of the table in English. 

“What about you is ever _sentient_ , Dési?” François asked

“Why is this the first thing I have to hear when you open your mouth?” Tahir asked. He looked up from his phone and at her with his brows slightly furrowed and one corner of his mouth a little lower than the other. 

“Because it’s an important question,” Désirée said. 

“I think the brain capacity or the kind of revival doesn’t have anything to do with it, so I’d say yes, it’s a zombie,” Arthur said and then avoided everyone else’s stares. 

“Good.” Désirée lowered her head before it snapped back up and turned to Hugo. “Right. So did you now knock your fling awake in the ass of the night or not?” she asked – still in English. 

Hugo heard Arielle and François snort. He didn’t dare take his eyes off Désirée, since the blush would have spread from his ears to his face for sure if he noticed that anyone else heard her. 

“Can you _at least_ have that conversation in French?” Tahir said so that Hugo didn’t even have to move a muscle to notice. “I don’t want to hear about other people’s sexlife during my breakfast.” 

“The only thing that tells me is that you should hone your French some more, mon cher,” Arielle told him while Arthur said: 

“I’d prefer that you’d stop talking about it entirely so that _no one_ here is subjected to that.” 

“If that are the topics talk about, I’m very happy about my broken French, ma belle,” Tahir answered her. Hugo looked at the two and there was even the hint of a smile on Tahir’s face. 

As there was a small smile on Arielle’s face as she said: “Mon cher, you are so boring. As your taste in men is, though it borderlines on terrible.” 

The hint of a smile dropped from Tahir’s face and was replaced with an exasperated expression as he cocked his head a little. Arielle either ignored it or simply must have not seen it as she looked past him at Robert. 

The cold had returned to her eyes and this time, there was an edge to it. 

Robert glared right back and Hugo saw that his teeth were grid. 

Tahir turned to Robert and his exasperated expression became an irked one as his brows furrowed harder. He showed his teeth as his jaw slightly dropped and his look went into the upper corner for one blink. 

“Stop it,” he told Robert whose look became more irritated. 

“Did I start it?” he asked back. 

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Désirée said and had the decency to do it in French this time. 

“Maybe,” Hugo gave her as an answer. Désirée chuckled. 

It grew into laughter. “Are you for real?” she asked with a grin. Her glasses still hung lopsided from her nose and Hugo almost reached out to fix them. 

“Maybe,” he repeated. Désirée shook with laughter again. 

“What do you expect if you knock someone awake at 3 am, who in their right mind would want to have sex then?” 

“Plenty of people I know would have been up for it,” Hugo said, but Désirée snorted. 

“After you knocked them _awake_? I’d only do that if I wanted to annoy someone or had something very important to say. “

“Your definition of importance can be an annoyance in itself,” Arielle said and Désirée gave her a proud smile before she turned back to Hugo. 

“I can’t believe you expected to get laid last night,” she told him with a grin when an arm came down on her shoulder. 

“I see you’re not actually dead,” Katharina said with a grin as she leant onto her. 

“I’ve transcended death,” Désirée told her very proudly. 

“You’ve drank sweet bullshit all night long, the only thing you’ve transcended is the barrier how much shit your body can take,” Robert said. 

Désirée squinted at him. “Excuse me, I don’t want to hear that from any wimp that gets drunk on _beer_. Just because it’s pink doesn’t mean it’s not hard stuff.” 

“Oi, Bailey, were you too hungover to show up this morning, too?” Katharina asked him. “Because I didn’t see you anywhere when I was running my laps this morning.” 

“Oh,” Robert said and looked at Tahir. His eyes were half-closed and the smile on his face showed some teeth as it reached from ear to ear. “I was busy with something else this morning.” 

Katharina cackled and Désirée hid a snort behind her hand. 

Tahir scrunched his nose up. 

Robert’s look went from him to Arielle for a moment. 

Arielle’s hand cramped around her coffee cup as if she intended to break it – might as well by throwing it at Robert’s head. Her brows were knit in anger while she grid her teeth. 

Tahir looked to and fro between them and as he turned back to Robert, furrowed brows had joined his scrunched up nose. 

“I said stop it.”

“Stop with what, handsome?” The smile hadn’t left his face. 

“You know that very well. I’ve had it up to here with this kindergarten.” 

Hugo agreed as he looked at Arielle when she downed the rest of her coffee. 

Maybe he clung to Leo, but he wasn’t hung up on them. And he’d rather play their game than Arielle’s, whose heart still hung onto a man that had never been hers. 

He got up and walked back to their table. 

“Finally finished?” Nathan asked while Hugo drank his coffee. It had turned cold. 

“Very much,” he said before Robin patted him on his back and he almost spit the coffee out again. 

“And whatever you talked about, it didn’t make you lose your appetite. It’s time that you get something inside of yourself.” 

Hugo pressed his lips onto each other and took a deep breath through his nose which resulted in an equally deep sigh. 

“Maybe,” he then told Robin who only laughed and leant closer to him with a grin. 

“Still hungover, eh boy? Maybe you should learn to hold your liquor, it’s about time because you ain’t getting any younger.” 

“Speaking of experience, huh?” he replied but Robin laughed. 

“Are you really alright though, Hugo?” Lilli asked and he smiled at her. 

“Of course. I simply … I just didn’t sleep enough last night,” he told her. “And probably had a few drops too much.” 

“Don’t worry about him, Lilli,” Leo said. “He’ll be fine.” They turned to Hugo. “You should really eat something, though. Not eating anything is only going to keep you miserable for longer.” 

Hugo wondered if it really was his hungover that made him miserable.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Weiß, das Hirn kriecht in die Venen_  
>  _Und es singen die Sirenen!_  
>  _Eine Faust in meinem Bauch_  
>  _Komm heeer ..._  
>  _Du willst es doch auch!_  
>  \- Rammstein
> 
> You can see a rendition of Hugo's thought process as a little comic [here on twitter!](https://twitter.com/C0FFINATED/status/1137471137057841152) It was done by my friend Jonah, who's also the creator of Hugo!


End file.
